Imo this automatic disapproval of asking for clarification is toxic and promotes circlejerks. If you got something to say to me, say it, but I’m not going to bend over backwards trying to guess what I’d have to do to appease internet strangers. That’s especially true of communities where terrible takes get massively upvoted, like that plus they won’t even voice their problem, at some point you gotta write those types off.

Because:

Military spending under Biden was the highest it had ever been (and more than the next 9 countries combined).

Sure, that money could’ve gone towards reducing the cost of living and giving them a chance at reelection, but at least this way they ensured the Republicans have a bunch more planes and shit to play with. Great job!

Netanyahu is clearly just being blackmailed by Putin to intentionally make Israel look bad. Anyone who disagrees with you on the internet? Russian bot. A massive wave of protests across university campuses? Believe it or not, Russian bots.

2013 international Gallup poll: “Which country is the biggest threat to world peace”

The word “quarantine” originates from a Venetian policy that every single ship had to wait outside of port for 40 days to ensure nobody had the plague. I’m sure the antivax people would have no problem with such measures?

Though to be fair, US is today’s center of capital, meaning the national bourgeois as a whole do have the increased capacity to commit these atrocities

That seems like a really good reason to be anti-America to me. In the material conditions that actually exist right now, America has the greatest ability to commit atrocities.

It’s weird to me to be like “I have no idea why people hate America, must be because they think Americans are genetically inferior” based on absolutely nothing and then immediately after provide an actual legitimate reason to hate America. It’s like you’re trying to interpret people’s stances in the least charitable way possible.

Me, a beurocrat loyal to the party: Muahaha! Now I’m going to make everyone starve! Hehehehehe!

This is just silly. If you actually look into the causes of historical famines, it wasn’t just some moustache-twirling beurocrat deciding to withhold food out of spite. For instance, in the USSR, wealthy landowners burned grain in response to collectivization, which they would’ve done regardless of who was trying to collectivize the land.

Moreover, this example only focuses on people involved in food production. If you’re saying that the workers in food production should be the ones to decide where the food goes, then guess what, they’re the authority now. Maybe they’ll even decide to hire some beurocrats (oh no!) to figure out distribution so they have more time to focus on their actual jobs. Or maybe they don’t. Either way, if you’re not in a critical industry, you’re at their mercy just as much as you would be in a more centralized system.

That is not the same as me wanting trans people to have no rights at all.

And what I said was that you wanted to take away rights, not have trans people have no rights at all.

You called me a liberal. That must mean you’re talking through the American lens

Lmao, wtf?

First off, you again frame this entirely around “expanding the coalition” to include the perpetrators while ignoring how it excuses (practically speaking) their victims. This is pure chauvanism, it’s failing to recognize both the inherent humanity of the victims of imperialism, and their ability to contribute to a cause. I’d rather come across as a “preachy weirdo” to war profiteers than as an imperialist to the victims. When you describe this as “anyone who doesn’t share [your] exact lifestyle and worldview” you are minimizing what’s going on and trying to make it a subjective issue when it’s not. That makes it clear that you don’t actually share any kind of moral outrage at them, that you don’t share my goals at all, and you’re just trying to pretend that it’s an issue of “tactics” because you don’t want to openly voice what you actually think.

Second, this babying, whitewashing shit doesn’t really work to achieve anything. At best, you might get them to vote for a more polite warmongerer, while continuing to do real, tangible harm on a daily basis - but most likely it won’t even do that. The way to change people’s minds is not through that kind of nonsense, it is by confronting them and bringing the conflict directly into the open. This is exactly what MLK said:

Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored. My citing the creation of tension as part of the work of the nonviolent resister may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word “tension.” I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth. Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, so must we see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood. The purpose of our direct action program is to create a situation so crisis packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation.

Your passive, whitewashing, can’t we all just get along approach is counterproductive and flies in the face of creating the necessary tension required to change people’s behavior. Which again, I don’t think you mind, because you’re not actually opposed to what they’re doing.

Second of all, where did I ever claim to want to take trans people’s rights away? Please stop putting words in my mouth

Do you think trans people should continue to have the right to participate in sports in accordance with the gender they identify as, yes or no?

Third of all, I am not a liberal and I’m not American. You couldn’t know that, but not every person on the internet is American nor do they live their lives through the American lens.

Where on earth did I imply you’re American? Stop putting words in my mouth.

It is tactically useful to point out their personal culpability, though. Very much so. Guilt is an incredibly powerful weapon. You just don’t want to wield it because you care more about protecting their feelings than you do about getting them to change.

Look at how much influence the Catholic Church has been able to wield in history by using guilt, and theirs wasn’t even based on the truth. What do you mean it’s “not tactically useful?”

Even if that were true, you’re simultaneously claiming that these people are willing to sabotage their company, and that they’d be alienated by saying that the work their company does is evil. That doesn’t make any sense.

I’m not “locking anyone out of the movement” by calling them evil war profiteers. If they want to join the movement, they can simply stop being evil war profiteers. I am simply telling the truth.

On the other hand, by welcoming and babying such people, you are alienating their victims. It makes it abundantly clear where your priorities lie. Why would a victim of these war profiteers want to be a part of a movement that whitewashes those who perpetrate or enable the violence they’ve suffered?

What is your vision for what “being part of the movement” would even look like for these people? Unless they’re taking direct action to sabotage and support their industry (in which case they will likely be caught and fired), they are undoubtedly doing far more harm there than they could possibly offset by voting or attending some protest.

War profiteers aren’t generally interested in fighting the state. But even to your point, obviously if you want to convince such people to fight the state, you should be criticizing their role as war profiteers. If you don’t call out what they’re doing for the evil that it is, then why would you expect them to “throw sand in the gears?”

I’d rather have solidarity with the people the bombs get dropped on than with the people building the bombs. Include war profiteers in your “solidarity” and shifts it away from class lines and into nationalism.

>post complaining about lack of tolerance for different political views

>looks inside

>“Why do people get so mad when I just want to take trans people’s rights away”

I am begging liberals to understand that this “trans people in sports issue” is not about sports. It’s being pushed with tons of money by far-right groups as a wedge issue and it’s not going to stop there. You are doing their work for them. Stop looking at this as some far off, philosophical abstraction and start looking at it in terms of what it is: a war.

He shall judge between the nations, and shall arbitrate for many peoples; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.

But what about the jobs??

I put off watching the last season of DS9 for a while, after they killed off Jadzia Dax in a really forced way. The worst part was that there was another episode that season where she almost died and it would’ve been a much more personal and appropriate way for her to go, but instead she’s randomly at the wrong place when the big bad shows up doing main plot stuff and that’s it. It was incredibly disappointing. Apparently there was some drama with contract shenanigans behind the scenes, so they ended up having to write it in last minute.

I did eventually come back and watch the last season and I’m glad I did, but I legit almost dropped it.

Very rude of them not to bury it at that point. Like seeing trash right next to a trash can.